Vikings Punter Britton Colquitt's Performance a "Cause for Concern" for Mike Zimmer

Colquitt had a rough day against the Broncos in the preseason opener. Soon, he might have competition for his job.

Not much went well for the Vikings in their 33-6 loss to the Broncos to kick off the preseason on Saturday.

However, with 33 players not participating — including essentially the entire starting units on both sides of the ball, plus some key backups — there's no reason to overreact to the outcome. For much of the afternoon, it was the Vikings' 2s and 3s going against the Broncos' 1s. The severity of the beatdown isn't a great sign about Minnesota's young depth, but the game didn't tell us much at all about what we'll see from the Vikings during the regular season.

Except, that is, for one area where the starters played: special teams. Kicker Greg Joseph did fine, converting a pair of short field goal attempts. Punter Britton Colquitt, on the other hand, had a very poor performance that created some serious concern for his head coach.

Colquitt punted the ball four times. Only one could be considered an adequate punt.

• The first traveled just 34 yards past the line of scrimmage for a fair catch.
• The second went 44 yards, but 12 of those came on a fortunate bounce. If the ball had been fair caught, it would've been an ugly 32-yard punt.
• The third, Colquitt's best of the day by far, was a 48-yard punt that was fair caught at the Broncos' 10.
• The final one went 36 yards, bounced straight up, and caused a scrum due to the belief that it touched a Broncos player. The Vikings challenged it with 2:15 remaining in a blowout, for some reason, and were unsuccessful.

That's a 40.5-yard average, which drops to 37.5 if you only focus on pre-bounce distance. The worst punting average in the NFL last year was 42.5 yards, and Colquitt's career average is above 45. Luckily for him, there was no damage to the net yardage caused by returns.

In the opener to his press conference after the game, one of the things Mike Zimmer mentioned was "three very poor punts." Later on, he was asked if that was just a bad day from Colquitt or cause for concern.

"It’s cause for concern," Zimmer said with a harsh, serious tone.

It's a bit surprising that the Vikings never seriously challenged Colquitt this offseason. The one punter they brought in, 30-year-old undrafted rookie Zach Von Rosenberg, was waived in mid-June. Colquitt is an 11-year veteran who has a solid track record, but he wasn't good in 2020. He finished second-to-last among qualified punters in net average (36.7 yards) and PFF grade (56.5).

After his poor performance against the Broncos, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Vikings bring in another punter for competition.

Update: the Vikings worked out free agent punter Max Duffy on Monday. Duffy, an Australia native, began his career playing Aussie rules football and then punted for the University of Kentucky for three seasons, winning the Ray Guy award as college football's best punter in 2019. He spent time with the Broncos this offseason.

"Obviously, he knows he didn’t perform to the standard he wants and that we have for him," special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken said.

Punting isn't going to make or break the Vikings' season, but that doesn't mean they won't take it seriously. They need to improve on 2020 in basically every area of special teams, particularly those that affect field position. If Colquitt isn't good enough, they'll try to find someone who is.

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